Alternate religions or life philosophies?
So just like all of us I was once a teenager and did a bit of exploring..
Please note that I so far have limited knowledge of Buddhism. That being said I did waste a few hours reading a certain book, time I will never get back. The satanic bible. So it's my opinion that Anton lavey was a Looney toon. As a scam artist he though good old atheism isn't enough. Instead of worshiping no one, the reader should worship him/her self. And the rest is equally nonsense.
I can sum up his idea in one sentance: "be a vicious asshole because it can possibly make you feel good."
I would like your opinions on this, another scam, or may be some decent alternatives to plain disbelief.
I have not studied other religions except for the brief amount your religion of choice has to say. I have no religion today because the concept of gods is something you get from certain holy books. In the end they have to be the same. They give no evidence of gods. This is because they were written by men. If a god existed and had plans or a message for us it would be plain for everyone to see. That doesn't appear to be the case.
I cannot believe a being made us for his pleasure and wanted to be worshipped, laid down some rules for us, then said if we follow him we can go to a place called "heaven." Of course, if we want nothing to do with this god we end up going to hell. Many argue with me that their bible does not say that. They believe, they cherry pick, and they have no idea what it says. Most do not even read it. I've studied and read it cover to cover.
Do I need to study Buddhism or Islam? What would be the point? I need objective evidence. There is no proof. What believers have is subjective evidence. This means it can be anything you say it is and anything you want it to be. Subjective religious arguments go on like forever. In the end it is all the same. There is no evidence.
So I adopted a large degree of my philosophy on life from a fantasy novel called The Runelords, by David Farland. In the book, there is an order of monks called the Days, whose job it is to chronicle the lives of famous people for history. The Days are taught a method for determining how "good" or "evil" someone is, based on their actions. Here's a brief rundown:
Every person has what they call "domains," concepts that they seek to enrich and protect. They are separated into three groups: Domain Visible, Domain Communal, and Domain Invisible. Domain Visible are the most obvious things that we wish to protect; our lives, our health, our property, our wealth. Domain Communal are the things we protect that relate directly to others; our reputation, our standing within a group, our image. Domain Invisible are things that cannot be seen, and do not relate directly to other people, but we protect and enrich them nonetheless; our freedom, our time, our self-confidence, our love, our happiness.
The Days are taught that someone who seeks to protect, enrich, and enlarge the Domains of other people are called good people throughout history, and those that enlarge their own Domains at the cost of others' are called evil. Armed with this philosophy, I simply try to live my life as a good person. It may have come from a fantasy novel, but I think this is better than any real-world religion I've ever encountered.
I did a bit of studying of Buddhism and this is what I came away with:
A. it is a faith, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
B. The buddha was always a supernatural figure, apologists have tried to downplay him to sell him as merely a teacher but if you read pali you will see that he was not described as we know human.
C. Do not read the pali. Get a book summarizing it or a "best of" it is long and thick and full of hair-splitting arguments about stuff no one can verify.
D. Morally you really can't fault is as a faith. Pretty much all the major religions have the basic: don't kill, don't steal, try to be nice, etc. stuff.
E. The 8-fold path is not a bad place to start in terms of developing a personal code of ethics.
F. Suffering comes from desire is really more of a statement of fact as opposed to advice to take.
G. meditation has been shown to have some health benefits.
Sometime I see peoples choice of religion/physiology to be done for shock value, any satanic thing kind of falls into this. I tend to lean toward things that would help one to live a better happier life. I really like the Four Agreements. Well that and a good craft beer.